Losing the Son
by Forever watching
Summary: All that's left is a long bleed out.     Not as sad as it sounds.


Disclaimer: Right, don't own AC, would love to but I don't. Hopefully this makes some kind of sense for insane rambles... Oh, yeah, the hole in the ground idea isn't mine I borrowed it off a web comic, someone might recognise it so I can credit the artist, I don't know. I've only played Brotherhood and that PSP game just to warn you, and the PS3's broke and been fixed three times so currently trying to scrounge up money for a new one.

I suppose this is a look at how much could have gone wrong in the beginning. It kind of ran away from me. My current theory is that a Templar infiltrated my brain.

Read at your own risk I guess.

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Sometimes he wonders how they're doing with him so far away. His little group of fledglings, even though some of them have grown into fine, proud eagles they're still his chicks. But no, that's not right. That's not right. He frowns. The feeling is slipping away now with an odd sense of loss.

He gets like this sometimes, they've barely started yet he finds himself struggling to untangle things within his own mind. He hopes they can't track back through him to the Farm, he's fairly certain they can't - he was so careful when it came to cutting all ties with that place. They'll be safer though, he's only a crowd of one after all, and there are so many more of them.

He doesn't have a group like that, or at least not here – he's fairly certain of this. He fell the other day, and everything's fuzzy around the edges. He vaguely remembers someone with a bright torch and a mutter of, "concussion."

He remembers the Cages - they were outside, exposed to the elements. For the most part someone only got put in there if they went against a teaching or broke a particularly important rule. He had always been reasonably well behaved; it was his curiosity that got him punished in the end. He wanted to know more about the outside world, beyond what the lessons taught them. He always asked more questions of the lecturers then they would give, they would dance around the subject and he was always aware of when they tried to fob him off.

His curiosity and enthusiasm started to affect the others of his age group too; they started questioning what they were told, demanding answers the adults didn't have. He didn't mean to cause that much trouble, but he craned his ear whenever someone asked something interesting in the hopes they might get a response. They wanted to know what the Outside was like, and once the idea was out there it took hold of their imaginations. He wanted to know what it was like - beyond the hold of the adults, out there clear of the high fence and hidden defences.

He would dream sometimes of trees that stretched so far above his head he could not make out the tops, he'd dream of buildings soaring towards the sky and how they'd outstrip the trees by miles. How he would climb and no matter how many times he grasped a new hand hold he never reached the crown. He dreamt of people with a million faces and a million tongues he didn't speak, somewhere no one knew him and yet he talked to them easily. There was a whirl of colours, voices, smoke and scents. A million people with a story of their own all different and so similar all at once.

Then one day he got called before the Farm master, he was called _heretic_, accused of stirring up trouble and then his punishment was given. He struggled, of course he struggled - the threat of the Cages was enough to keep even the worst behaved of them from wandering out of line much. Against eagles his resistance did no good.

They were squares - pits really, cut into the ground. There was a drain in the bottom to make ensure that they didn't drown in the rain – not that they saw a lot of that out here, but when they did it was torrential. Four smooth walls of reinforced concrete and a set of bars set into them up above in the grate that was level with the ground. It was too high for him to see more than the tiny square of sky teasing him through the bars. A tiny taste of freedom he couldn't get. He laughed wryly, thinking of the fence around the Farm: a cage within a cage.

It got bitterly cold at night, cold enough that even huddled up tight he didn't sleep. He didn't know if he'd wake up if he did. Air would sometimes blow in through the bars, though he was saved the strong winds because of the way the Cage was submerged.

Sometimes he would hear the faint whispers of people, but he saw no one. Nobody approached, no matter how much he yelled. He wouldn't wish this punishment on anyone. He learned to hate it, learned to hate _them _because _they took away the sky. _

Eventually he was let out, the heavens seemed so big and the world so large after being in the ground it was almost scary. There were four adults there to pull him out; his parents he noted were not among them. It stung.

He was allowed to return to class soon after, but the dynamic had changed. He noticed it almost instantly. No one asked questions any more. It was no longer 'Us,' it had become us and _them._

8

He didn't notice at first when he started to lose track of the days, after all in a place that looks like an over sterilised box that was kind of expected. A bloke comes in from time to time, dressed exactly the same as he is, yet he won't say how he keeps escaping his room. The bloke makes even less sense than his own mind, and he takes small comfort in that - he's not quite crazy yet... Neither of them gets along particularly well with the other and often insults and taunts degenerate into huge screaming matches.

Generally they are left alone till they exhaust themselves yelling. He was usually closest to the door though, so they'd tranquilise him first if their fights went so far that rendering him unconscious was a good resolution. He doesn't ask about the bandages around the others wrists.

They're in the middle of one of their fights when a woman with a clipboard comes in. She's staring at it, but upon registering the furious shrieks, her head jerks up, gaping at them with a look of startled surprise that shifts into barely concealed fear. It's a look he's not seen directed their way before. She holes herself up in the corner of the room nearest the door and tries to look inconspicuous.

After a while he can see she's building up courage in the way she bites her lip. He turns his focus from the other, piercing her with a look, he ignores the flinch. Ignores how she holds the clipboard up as though to put a barrier between them. She asks him if he knows he's hallucinating, he returns the question with a blatant look of incredulity – just what is she on? He turns to share this with the other. The other isn't there.

He thanks her with a charming smile, hiding just how shaken he's feeling – if that was a hallucination then how many of their arguments have been real? The hairs on the back of his neck rise on end and a rush of cold runs through him like a wave, turning he finds the other standing there his hands loose at his sides looking shy. "H-hello."

The woman is gone now, there's no sign of her presence. Which one of those people was... is real? It doesn't seem to matter. They carry on fighting anyway.

8

"How old are you?" The question comes suddenly and unexpected, the pepper haired bloke with the moustache focusing on him intently.

He opens his mouth, the answer clear on his tongue, but at the last moment he hesitates, eyes drifting sideways slowly, a look of uncertainly displayed clearly by them. There are too many answers he realises. He doesn't know which one to give.

From time to time he feels incredibly young, but mostly he feels aged, as though he should be an old man watching the world fly passed in his chair by the window.

Some days it's hard to remember Before. Life before Abstergo caught him is either as clear as day, or like clutching at straws. It's frustrating because he can feel it there on the tip of his tongue.

He wants to be out of here, he wants to see the skyline and feel the wind rush past him when he's on his bike. He wants the feel of four legs under him eating up the tarmac. He wants to pick where he travels and how far he can go before he stops. He wishes for control.

He doesn't always know who he is and it's frustrating, he's fairly certain he hasn't had an identity crisis since he was a teenager. They've changed that, them with their Cage without sky. Sometimes he wonders if it'd be worth it, worth fighting back just to see their faces. He'd bring down their rule piece by piece.

His vision flickers again, it does that from time to time - he used to have control of it. The world plunges into gloom, the lights over head gaining distorted halos. The people around him light up in red, the very rare one in almost blue flickers through the hundreds he watches from the window.

Then she's calling to him, the woman who's been hanging around the last few days, she shines a cerulean untainted like the others are. He follows, loping stride stumbling for a second as he compensates for the weight of weapons that are not there.

Fighting is familiar, like an old friend. His style changes unconsciously from the hard swings of a brawler to something else... And she is there, striking close to him with the calm sudden precision of a Kingfisher.

They run and this is familiar also, this is something he's done so many times he doesn't need to think about it. He strains his ears for the sound of voices or boots, left hand poised ready though it bears no weapon.

Meeting the others later is strange. That man... Shaun... There's something in his expression, in the way he holds himself that reminds him so very much of Malik. For a second he can't understand what the red headed man is saying, the tone is right but the language is all wrong.

They place him in the past, just like Abstergo did before, and he finds it harder than ever to remember things. He feels trepidation lying down in that machine the first time, but he won't show it or give the fear a voice. He has to do this - for his Order there's no other option, but it's not his is it? He wasn't born for this... was he?

It's easier to hang around Miles - easier to think of him as Miles too, perhaps because the name is similar to Malik. The impatient, stressed man always has more than a word or three for him, even when he's busy. It's familiar in an odd way, and he'll hang on to all the familiar he can get.

He stares at the buildings around him, wondering if he's seen them before but no memory comes forth and in the end he doesn't know. He doesn't recognise his own hands sometimes, the sight of an intact ring finger takes him by surprise or there's a scar from a fight missing or present when he clearly remembers otherwise. It bothers him more than he likes to admit. There are so many things he can't remember he feels like a piece of poorly made patchwork, a limping old wolf. A small cynical little voice in his head wonders if they'll have him put down when they're done.

He's sitting in his room, the bed underneath helping keep him grounded. He holds his hand before him watching blood ooze from a scrape; if he is still bleeding then he's still alive. He studies the slow trickle flow millimetre by millimetre over an old scar, squeezing his eyes tight seconds later against a sudden wave of stomach churning vertigo. His eyes open again when it passes, focusing on a miraculously unblemished hand. Taking it in with a troubled mind it takes a while for the sight to penetrate, everything that was once whirling has fallen into a stunned, unsettled stillness. Long seconds later he's on his feet, shifting in a sudden blur of speed – there's a mirror somewhere. He just has to know, he has to _see._

It's wrong. It's wrong, wrong ,wrong, _wrong! _The shape of the eyes should be different, and so many other things about it are just not snarls like a cornered animal, throwing a bottle of something viciously at the reflection. That's not his _face._

8

"Desmond?"

That name's familiar, and he looks up from the puzzle in his hands for the person who owns it. There's a woman in the room with pale blond hair - she's the only other one there besides him, _strange_ he thinks, wasn't Desmond a guy's name?

She's looking straight at him, and he looks curiously back, she gestures over her shoulder. "Dinner's ready." And then she leaves.

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End file.
